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Sunday, 19 October 2014

Looking at their basic profile first there are two things
that really stand out. First, they are just as skilled as a space marine, but
only as strong and tough as a guardsman. This is one of the defining traits of
the entire codex in actual fact. The Dark Eldar book is often described as a
glass hammer or glass cannon, and this profile split shows why. Your own
shooting is as powerful as anything in the game, when taking into account
range, rate of fire etc. You’re almost uniquely ill-equipped to deal with the
return fire however (there are more fragile troops, but none so costly in
points terms).

Second – they’re fast. Despite being a basic troop type they
will still strike in combat before just about any other unit in the game,
including many characters. This is an important factor in the above point, both
for the kabalite warriors and the wyches we’ll look at later. Now you might
wonder why this matters on a unit that’s clearly not intended to be a combat
effective option, but consider this – in the late game, the warrior unit brings
three attacks each on the charge at S4 and Initiative 5 – that’s as many
attacks as an assault marine, who would strike after you provided they’re
either already in combat or you don’t have to charge through cover.

So in terms of options, what can we do for the warrior
squad. Well the first upgrade is to make them trueborn, but as they then fall
into the elite category I’ll deal with them later. Squad size begins small
enough to fir in a venom, and ends at double what you can take in a raider.
This gives us nice flexibility in purpose for the warrior squads, you can use
minimum size squads to get access to venoms, gunboats to make use of the
benefits raiders bring, or just max out the squad completely to really bring
the pain down on the enemy.

As with most codices, you can upgrade one of the models to a
sergeant character, in this case referred to as a sybarite. In profile as is
fairly standard they bring an extra point of leadership and an extra attack,
along with access to funky wargear. In the case of the Dark Eldar, I really
don’t see the extra point of leadership to be all that important. Basic
leadership is above the average roll for two dice, and there are two unique
factors that combine to make this even less important. First, you’ll often be
wanting to take your warriors on transports, which makes them fearless. If
you’re not taking them on transports then you’ll probably be bringing them in
via webway portal so they’ll be accompanied by a higher leadership character in
any case. The extra attack for a sybarite can be useful, but it’s not going to
make a massive difference when things get choppy choppy. So, you’ll be relying
on the upgrades to make the sybarite worthwhile then, yes?

Again as is fairly normal, they can swap their rifle for a
pistol, giving them two melee weapons at the cost of range, though in this
case, they have the choice of two different pistols, one a version of the
darklight weapons scattered throughout the list. Theoretically at least it’s a
good pistol, but the range is incredibly short making it functionally difficult
to use, and certainly not worth the points in a general list. The two important
pieces of equipment though are haywire grenades (sure, it’s only one guy in the
unit but they’re cheap and they can cause some serious damage when you cluster
several units together). The upgrade I’m coming to see as a bit of a gem though
is the phantasm grenade launcher – it’s basically a poor man’s Psychic Shriek,
though its wounds cannot be applied to Fearless or ATSKNF models. This
particular type of equipment can also be taken on the raider and used in
combination with a model wearing the Armour of Misery for a negative leadership
modifier, has the potential to rip casualties out of the heart of the enemy
army and change the game on its own (bear in mind, the leadership modifier
would also apply to morale tests caused by any casualties too). Clearly it
works better on units with lower leadership, and if you can catch them close to
their table edge and cause them to fall back off it, all the better!

On to upgrades for the unit, you can take one of two special
weapons, one if the unit is minimum sized and two if you’ve maxed out the
models. Here’s where I have an issue though – more so than many other armies,
because the normal rifles carried by the unit are poisoned, they are completely
incapable of harming tanks. As such, the weaponry in the unit is mono-tasked,
and only one of the weapons that can be taken synergises with that task. Many
reviews you’ll see will advise that you take as many blasters and dark lances
as you can fit into your army, but that’s where I disagree – I don’t want to go
into any game knowing that any of my units are going to be wasted. Taking a
warrior unit with mainly anti-infantry shooting just to get access to a blaster
(and possibly dark lance) seems counter productive as now the unit has two
completely different targets. Sure, if you’re taking the blaster to boost your
anti-infantry power (if you know you’ll be facing lots of power or terminator
armour for example) then by all means, but I’d certainly advise against taking
blasters for anti tank in a warrior unit (hint – that’s what trueborn are for).
The other weapon option, the shredder, is mixed in terms of its effectiveness,
I’d definitely say it’s mainly anti infantry, but it retains a certain amount
of anti vehicle capability, at least for stripping the odd hull point, due to
its high strength. The big problem with the shredder is it’s just a small
blast, and any opponent who knows what they’re doing won’t let you hit more
than one model at a time, in which case you’d have been better off taking the
splinter rifle anyway (seriously, I do not know why they didn’t make the
shredder a template weapon).

For heavy weapons, they are limited to a splinter cannon or
dark lance. I’ll not mention the dark lance too much since it’s just a heavy
version of the blaster (with a longer range) and therefore suffers all the same
issues mentioned above. The splinter cannon however is an upgrade I just can’t
decide on at the moment. It’s now a salvo weapon, 4/6, so at the very basic
level it adds firepower of the same type to the unit, but at the cost of range
if the unit moves. That’s fine I hear you say, why not just stay still, you
don’t need to move now to get your jink save, and you’d be right, but quite
often I find that if you don’t move the unit, you’re limiting the amount of
firepower the rest of the models can bring down, and losing 9 splinter rifle
shots if your target moves out of rapid fire range to gain two more splinter
cannon shots just doesn’t make any sense.

Conclusion

The warrior unit is a staple of a Dark Eldar list, though if
it weren’t for the minimum requirement you probably wouldn’t see all that many
in a list any more. As you’ll see when we come to dedicated transports I think
they’re most effective taken in raiders with splinter racks but otherwise kept
as cheap as possible. I honestly wouldn’t bother with the special weapon
upgrades, or the heavies, they make an already costly unit even pricier, and
the Dark Eldar army has much better, more efficient ways to get any of the
firepower those options bring. I would strongly consider taking phantasm
grenade launchers though against most armies in the game, they can come in really
handy for whittling down the enemy units and forcing morale tests.

Wyches

Well, boy has this unit divided opinion online! I’m going to
read you a quote from the book here about wyches, which is that all wyches are skilled knife fighters who
can kill a foe many times their size with the smallest of blades. Now we
all know that the fluff exaggerates the abilities of the models way beyond
their tabletop performance, but this one probably takes the biscuit. Under the
umbrella of the last codex, wyches were one of the most utilised troop types –
in fact the 5 wyches with haywire grenades in a venom was seen so often in
competitive lists it was one of the elements that drove me away from the army
for a while. Well, the haywire grenade option has gone, and wyches are back in
the fold under their fluffy purpose – combat troops. Looking at the statline
for wyches we see the basic traits of the Dark Eldar coming to the fore again,
the marine levels of skills, the guardsmen strength and toughness, and the
ridiculously high initiative (even higher than the warriors on this occasion).
Where the analysis gets complicated is that wyches bring combat drugs to the
party, so one of 6 stats gets a +1 increase from the start of the game. This
can be anything from making their opponents easier to hit, wound or even making
the wyches even faster to the punch. There’s perhaps only 1 that I’d say is of
no functional use however, and that’s the initiative bonus.

In wargear terms, wyches bring assault grenades, which are
rare in this book, and they also bring an invulnerable save in the fight sub
phase. This again has caused consternation with a lot of players feeling they
should get their invulnerable save against overwatch fire too. I can’t see how
this is justified myself, since the dodge is meant to represent their speed in
combat, whereas overwatch fire is on a par with shooting in your enemy’s
shooting phase. The save makes them very good at hanging around and
‘tar-pitting’ the enemy (bogging a unit down in a combat it can’t get out of
quickly) though I personally think it would be better representative of their
purpose if they were more able to damage the enemy.

Interestingly, the wych squad has a maximum size of 15,
instead of 20 for the warriors. There’s the usual sergeant upgrade and similar
to the warriors, the unit can be upgraded to the more elite bloodbrides (again,
I’ll review them in a separate post). Interestingly the sergeants can only take
weapons from the melee list not the wych cult weapons, which are limited to 1
unless the unit numbers 10 or more, in which case up to three may carry them
(this means if the unit is accompanied by a character, you can only have one
wych weapon if you’re going to fit into a raider). All things considered
though, if you were taking the sergeant upgrade, the melee weapon options are
better (well, the agoniser is, the power sword less so). Wych weapons are
interesting now, giving you either re-rolls to hit, shred or re-rolls of all
1’s. They’re all pretty cheap, which is good since they only affect the unit
carrying the weapon and are therefore pretty average in terms of game effect
(dice never behave right, your wych with shred will miss, the razorflails will
fail to wound and the shardnet will fail on 2’s instead of 1’s!).

The wyches can still come with a venom or raider, and the
sergeant upgrade can take haywires for a potential two haywire effects each
turn. (Of course, if you also take a character with haywires, you can dismount
them separately from the wyches, throw two haywire grenades from the unit and
follow it up with two charges, possibly tanking overwatch on a different model
to keep the wyches alive. Finally, the sergeant can also take a phantasm
grenade launcher the same as the warrior equivalent.

Conclusion

The wyches are a single purpose unit these days, and they’re
not massively anti tank (though haywires on the sarg and an attached character
aren’t a bad option). That’s not to say they haven’t got a place in the army
though – plasma grenades mean they’re one of only two units that can charge
into cover and strike at initiative, and they’re great for bulking out a combat
character’s attacks. On their own they can still tie down a scary unit from
your opponent’s army, particularly come turn 5 once they have fearless.

Where wyches are viable however is in combination with other
units – they always suffered, particularly on overwatch when charging a unit
containing flamers. The presence of plasma grenades though means that they can
actually make use of the high initiative they have to start with, and it’s
important to remember that they will always be better than the statline from
the book thanks to combat drugs.

The downside to this is that whilst they work great in
combination with other units, that becomes a substantial investment once you
add in their transport and the other unit, whatever that may be, to take the
hit on overwatch in their place. In short, yes, wyches are still usable, but I
think you’ll really only see them in heavily themed combat lists.

Dedicated Transport – Raider

Once again, let’s look at the profile of the vehicle first,
before looking at particular loadouts and strategies. First thing you notice
then is that it’s fragile. It’s a fast skimmer, with armour as low as it gets,
equivalent to a space marine land speeder, with an extra hull point. It comes
stock with the anti-elite disintegrator cannon, and has two special rules –
deep strike and night vision. So we have a fast skimmer vehicle with a single
weapon, that can deep strike to deliver its payload unharmed into the heart of
the enemy. Jury is still out over just what effect the deep strike rules have
on skimmers with regard to scattering over enemy units (I’m personally of the
opinion that the rules offer more support for the view that a skimmer that
scatters in this manner on deep strike is moved to avoid the enemy unit, but I
know others who strongly disagree with this view - I’ve just not seen a
convincing argument for it yet).

As you’d expect the transport has access to a variety of
vehicle upgrades, all of which allow it to perform in certain ancillary roles
or support its main role. Let’s get this straight right from the start, it’s
main role is to transport infantry.

The disintegrator cannon can be upgraded to a dark lance for
a nominal fee, which is an anti tank weapon. Chain snares effectively turn the
vehicle into a tank for tank shock purposes, enhanced aethersails allow an
extended flat out move in the shooting phase, grisly trophies help your troops
to pass morale tests, the shock prow allows the skimmer to ram other vehicles,
night shields grant stealth, torment grenade launchers work in exactly the same
way as the phantasm grenade launcher already discussed but with greater range,
and splinter racks make your splinter fire more effective.

As you can imagine, for a fragile vehicle such as the
raider, you’re almost certainly not going to want to pile all these upgrades
onto one vehicle (it would more than double its cost) so you need to carefully
evaluate the primary and secondary battlefield roles it’s likely to have. If
you want your raider to act as a mobile platform for your kabalite warriors to
pour splinter fire into the enemy, then splinter racks are ideal. Night shields
will allow those vehicles to survive far longer in the fight (without affecting
the accuracy of the unit embarked on the vehicle!) and torment grenade
launchers could seriously improve the likelihood of dealing a hammer blow from
any unit charging off the raider that turn. These are the three upgrades that I
see as supporting a primary use of the vehicle (either as a firing platform or
a transport for an assault unit).

For secondary roles then, the upgrades get cheaper. Grisly trophies
will allow your units to hang around longer in the fight, though as you should
be getting the drop on your opponent and your troops become fearless on turn 5
at the latest, I’d say it’s perhaps an upgrade I could happily forego. The
shock prow is an interesting upgrade, essentially increasing the raider’s
armour value for the purposes of ramming other vehicles. On the flip side, if
you’re ramming tanks, you don’t have an advantage once they’re armour 12 or
more (actually, anything more than 12 and you’re still more likely to hurt
yourself than you are the enemy). Consequently, the shock prow is situational
and predicated on you ramming the rear armour of your opponent, something they’re
hardly likely to let you do without working hard to achieve it, and as such I’d
say it’s best left at home (maybe on one raider per army, tops!). I’m unsold on
aethersails at the moment. I’ve seen reviews from people who are very
experienced gamers claiming they’re like gold and they’d never take a raider
without one, however I am struggling to justify the points in an army whose
transports can already move 30” per turn and are capable of arriving within a
flat out move of the exact point they want to be. Finally, chain snares are an
interesting topic. Similar to the shock prow, they allow your vehicle to
undertake moves like a tank that other skimmers can’t execute. Great, I hear
you say, how many times have you ever seen a tank shock win you a game. In
fact, how many times have you ever seen someone fail the leadership test for a
tank shock? I’d hazard a guess your reply will be between ‘never’ and ‘once’.
Still, if you combine this effect with a passenger wearing the amour of misery,
even space marines will struggle, since they would only be passing such tests
on a 6! Or in other words, a less than 50% chance of passing the test! For the
points involved, I’d say that one is worth it, particularly if you’re playing
something like a Tau army that’s likely to have lots of units close to their
board edge.

Conclusions

The raider is not cheap – a rhino it ain’t! However, in the
right circumstances and with a clear thought process in choosing upgrades, it
can be a force multiplier and a deadly tool in its own right. I personally would
take 3-4 minimum in a dark eldar force, using at least a couple as gunboats
with splinter racks (and possibly night shields if I have the points and I’m
not playing an army with a lot of options to ignore cover). If I’m using a few
assault units I’d probably stack up on torment launchers to complement those I
would take on the assault units themselves, and I’d definitely consider
upgrading my HQ’s boat to carry chain snares. At this point, I wouldn’t go for
aethersails, but if you play a lot of tactical objective games (Maelstrom of
War) then you might want to think about them.

Dedicated Transports – Venom.

Well, what can you say about the venom that hasn’t already
been written endless times on endless websites? You’ll see them everywhere. The
venom comes with the same lack of armour displayed by the raider, but in its case
it’s protected by an in-built flickerfield, which gives it a modes invulnerable
save (Feel no Pain for vehicles?). It has a hull point less than the raider,
but otherwise has the same special rules. By default, it’s armed with a
splinter cannon and a twin linked splinter rifle (actually, the unit entry
picture in the codex has it still armed with the twin rifles). The main upgrade
is to swap out those rifles for a second splinter cannon. I’m gonna go on
record here and say that I don’t think any of you will ever have played (or
possibly ever will play) against a venom that doesn’t carry two splinter
cannons.

As with the raider, the venom (theoretically at least) has a
solitary role to perform. Transport of a unit. Errr, no, it doesn’t quite end
there. The anti infantry firepower kicked out by a venom is such that you’ll
see these things spawned over and over again in many dark eldar lists – it’s a
problem that’s only really got worse with the current codex, since as we’ll see
later they can now be taken without a unit to transport.

The transport capacity of a venom is half that of a raider,
and as such the only units you’ll really see them carrying around are incubi
(who don’t need to be taken in more than groups of five), blasterborn and
minimum size warrior units with a blaster.

The vehicle upgrade list for the venom is very limited, just
the grisly trophies and chain snares. I wouldn’t bother quite frankly, the grisly
trophies for the reasons set out in the raider review above, and the chain
snares because if you’re going to set up a transport to perform a secondary
role like that, you might as well put it on the one with the extra hull point
in the hopes it’ll be able to use it.

Conclusions

My venom review is short for one reason only – they’ve not
really changed in purpose or capability since the last codex. They’ll probably
outnumber raiders in peoples lists substantially, and they’ll tend to hang
around at the back of the board pouring anti infantry fire into anything within
range. The only real change is that now the night shields no longer reduce the
range of your weapons, you’ll be able to shoot them back easier.